MOLECULAR DYNAMICS

Physicists study matter and motion, or matter in motion. These forms of matter may be large, or they may be far too small to be seen by the most high-powered microscopes available. Such is the realm of molecular dynamics, the study and simulation of molecular motion. As its name suggests, molecular dynamics brings in aspects of dynamics, the study of why objects move as they do, as well as thermodynamics, the study of the relationships between heat, work, and energy. Existing at the borders between physics and chemistry, molecular dynamics provides understanding regarding the properties of matter—including phenomena such as the liquefaction of gases, in which one phase of matter is transformed into another.